


Tuesday Drabbles - Reader Prompt Table of DOOM

by methylviolet10b



Series: Tuesday Drabbles [2]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 16,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For over a year now, I've been writing five ACD-verse drabbles every Tuesday, and posting the results that day. After I finished the Second Prompts Table on Watson's Woes, I asked readers to give me words if they were interested in my continuing the Tuesday drabble-habit. I was thrilled with the sheer volume of words people sent me. Some of these drabbles evolved into their own stories; some relate to others; but most just stand alone as 100-word stories. Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 6/7/2011

  
**Latinate**  
  
“Hah!” The silence of the past hour shattered. Holmes looked up from his paper-strewn desk, his eyes afire. “Preposterous! This fellow asserts that the word has Latinate origins on the basis of a single suffix! The origin is clearly Old Norse, although there are certainly permutations that occurred in Old English, and again in the transition to Middle English. What could the man be thinking , to declare a Latin basis?”  
  
“I cannot imagine, Holmes,” I replied truthfully.  
  
“Dreadful, the depths that scholarship has sunk to at our greatest universities,” Holmes muttered.  
  
‘Dreadful’ indeed. I dreaded the drought of cases!  
  
  
 **Beast**  
  
Mysterious packages are not unknown at Baker Street. Just returning from an afternoon walk, Holmes and I looked askance at the wicker basket sitting unattended at the rear entrance. The basket _moved_.  
  
Mrs. Hudson appeared at the door before either of us could take action and picked up the heaving wickerwork by the handle. “Oh, good!” She returned inside, with us at her heels.  
  
Once inside, Mrs. Hudson opened the lid. A blur of motion, and then a ragged, defiant beast stood in the hallway, glaring balefully with its one eye.  
  
Holmes glared back. “What manner of cat is that?”  
  
  
 **Burrow**  
  
Mrs. Hudson looked almost as offended as the one-eyed tabby bristling its pathetic stump of a tail. “That ‘beast,’ Mr. Holmes, is the best ratter you’re ever likely to see. Mrs. Miller had her for scarcely a week, and by the week’s end, she said there wasn’t a single rat left alive in its burrow, not anywhere in the entire house.”  
  
“We have rats?”  
  
“Haven’t you noticed the signs?” Mrs. Hudson exclaimed.  
  
“I’m sure she’s a splendid hunter,” I injected hastily, seeing a dangerous glint in Holmes’ eyes. “What’s her name?”  
  
“Precious.”  
  
I somehow managed not to burst out laughing.  
  
  
 **Circumlocution**  
  
“My dear Mrs. Hudson, I was indeed unaware of any rodent problem. I am sure it cannot be severe.”  
  
“Well, I should hope not,” Mrs. Hudson sniffed, somewhat mollified by Holmes’ ingratiating manner, but too experienced with his moods to be entirely soothed. “But where you see one rat, you’re sure to have more, and I won’t have them in my cellar.”  
  
“Naturally not. But surely a rat terrier, bred specifically for the purpose, would be best? I know a fellow…”  
  
Holmes chattered on about dogs, most unusually. Belatedly, a reason for his circumlocution dawned on me.  
  
Holmes disliked cats!  
  
  
 **Action**  
  
“I cannot believe that we must endure another week of this torment.”  
  
“Oh come now, Holmes. She’s not so bad.”  
  
“She’s a holy terror!”  
  
“To the rats, yes. You cannot fault her for lack of action on that front.”  
  
“For her alacrity in killing vermin, no, I cannot fault her. I can and do object, however, to her leaving evidence of her success on my pillow every morning! I grow weary of opening my eyes to dismembered mouse heads and severed rat tails.”  
  
“I think she’s trying to win you over.”  
  
“Then she should leave her trophies on _your_ pillow!”


	2. 6/14/2011

 

**Affinity**

“To be left until called for.”

The hand-printed sign over a pile of luggage in the porter’s room caught my eye as I looked around the tiny railway-station once again. Still no sign of Holmes. I had rushed up to this remote corner of Warwickshire on the first available train, in response to his wire. I had expected to meet him here, or at least find further instructions. Instead, nothing, not in the two hours since I disembarked from my train.

To be left until called for, indeed – it was a condition for which I felt a certain bitter affinity.

 

**Bent**

Watson exited the hansom more slowly than usual, and he winced as he climbed the steps up to the door of Simpson’s. The time spent bent over nearly double behind Holmes’ bedstead, listening to Holmes bait Culverton Smith into giving himself and his villainous schemes away, had clearly done his old wounds no favors.

His stiffness of manner when seated across the table, however, had nothing to do with war-scarred flesh. This was the result of far fresher wounds, ones Holmes himself had inflicted that day. Inwardly Holmes cursed himself for a fool as he outwardly attempted to make amends.

 

**Creak**

There is a creak in the second floorboard just inside Watson’s room. I have known this since the day we took possession of 221B, yet my friend appears to have never noticed.

Or perhaps he has, but has never associated it with events. Equally possibly he has pretended ignorance of its cause and subsequent effects. Watson consistently underplays his own intelligence, even to me.

The board creaks again tonight, and I move from my room to the mantelpiece. By the time he reaches the sitting-room, I have my violin in hand.

“Still awake, Watson? Do you mind if I play?”

 

**Duxelles**

“Have you made your selection, Watson?”

I shook my head. “Why don’t you go ahead and order first, Holmes.”

Listening to the waiter natter on to Holmes about the relative merits of “boeuf en croute et gratin dauphinois et asperges au nautrel” and “suprême de pintade farcie avec duxelles de champignons,” I found myself heartily wishing that we were dining instead in the familiar environs of Simpson’s, or the friendly confines of our rooms at Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson’s cuisine might not be imaginative, but it was usually tasty, and I always knew what I was putting into my mouth.

 

**Beginnings**

Chemical-stained hands.

Bright eyes warm with curiosity in a too-thin, nut-brown face.

A hastily-jabbed bodkin and bright red blood.

Hair bleached blond by faraway desert sunshine.

Mutual poverty and mutual curiosity.

A thirst for adventure and a need for justice.

Lassitude of illness and lassitude of drugs.

Illness and ennui driven away with gun and pen.

Boredom fought and conquered only to rise again.

A hastily-jabbed needle and bright red tracks on a sinewy arm.

Hastily-exchanged heated words and long silences.

Bright-blue eyes warm with curiosity and wide with anxiety.

Out of such humble, little, everyday things come beginnings…or endings.


	3. 6/21/2011

 

**Moon**

_There’s a moon over Baker Street tonight_

_Holmes’ eyes gleam with excitement in the pale gas-light_

_I’ve no choice but to answer his call_

_The criminals, the deductions, and the moon and all…*_

“Watson, are you…” Holmes’ voice broke in on my ruminations, and I set down my pen to meet his uncharacteristically confused gaze. “I thought I heard you…humming.”

“Humming?”

“Singing, actually, although I did not quite catch the words. What _are_ you working on?”

I felt my cheeks heat. “Oh, just a bit of music-hall poetry. Not really my thing.” Hastily, I tossed my scribbling into the fire.

 

*with all due apologies to Sting and his “Moon Over Bourbon Street”

 

**Deliver**

It had been over a day since Watson’s hasty departure. The morning brought no sign of my fellow-lodger. However, as the day wore on, and I neither received any word nor saw him return, I began to feel uneasy. By tea-time, unease had changed to concern. By nightfall, concern had metamorphosed to active worry.

At last I heard his footstep on the stairs, heavy and slow. His appearance at the door matched his gait: haggard, blood-stained, and grey with exhaustion. But his eyes told the true tale. He had won; he’d managed to deliver the child _and_ save the mother.

 

**Dice**

Despite Holmes’ rapid, brilliant deductions, we were too late. The door to the rectory study was locked against us. Constable Jones forced it open, only to recoil at the pungent smell of gunpowder and blood. Rooney sprawled across his desk, his head a shattered ruin. One hand still clutched the revolver that had now claimed two lives. In the other was a note.

“What does it say?”

“’οἱ κύβοι Διός ἀει εὐπίπτουσι.*’ It has been some years since I last had any acquaintance with the Ancient Greeks, but I believe it translates to ‘When God throws, the dice are loaded.’”

 

*with due apologies to anyone who speaks or reads Greek; I don’t. This is an ancient Greek proverb, but I could not find a reliable version of it in Greek. If you’ve a better Greek representation of the proverb, I’d love to see it. **Edited to add:** joyous and heartfelt thanks to [](http://goldvermilion87.livejournal.com/profile)[**goldvermilion87**](http://goldvermilion87.livejournal.com/) , who knows Greek and tracked down the proper Greek phrasing!!!

 

**Effervescent**

Mr. Holmes is a perplexing plethora of mysteries. I’ve very few rivals for intelligence at the Yard – that annoying midget Lestrade might come close if he’d an education – but Mr. Holmes outmatches me. He’s not practical, and he’s moody at best, but no one’s sharper.

Today, though, he was practically effervescent. In contrast to his recent morose moods, he smiled at me as I came in the door. “Ah, back again, Gregson? Good. Why don’t you acquaint Watson with the particulars?”

One mystery solved: the doctor’s occupied chair after a month’s absence was clearly the source of Mr. Holmes’ ebullience.

 

**Common sense**

My Watson rarely gives himself his due in his stories or in our daily interactions. Some of this is a result of his natural modesty, a trait only reinforced by being overshadowed by his elder brother. (He did not tell me this, but it is blindingly obvious.) He regularly downplays his strengths: his sterling character, reliability, intelligence, even his own good looks.

I once slipped a highly uncharacteristic addition* into one of his manuscripts to test a theory on editorial effectiveness. Anyone with common sense would have realized Watson never wrote it – but it remains in print to this day.

 

*with due apologies to ACD, but there’s a particular line in canon that has always surprised me, so I’m blaming Holmes and his sense of humor. Care to guess what addition Holmes might have made?  ;-)

 


	4. 6/28/2011

 

**Nocturnal Vigil**

After a while, aspects of cases can often blur together. Did the alley chase in the Coghlan case end in a stable or at the river-side? Was it Inspector Bradstreet or Inspector Jones that so infuriated Holmes with incessant coughs last December? And one nocturnal vigil is very like another, after all, unless it involves something truly memorable (like snakes).

It is to keep all these little details straight as much as any other reason that Watson frequently re-reads the journals he keeps of Holmes’ cases. Right from the start, he knew he’d never want to forget a single thing.

 

**Disrespect**

Holmes’ Bohemianism is absolutely heartfelt. His lack of regard for rank is profound, although he rarely allows his scorn for such social niceties to turn into active disrespect. Still, he genuinely does not care if his client is a tradesman, a cabbie, a pauper, or a king. They are all the same to him. He addresses his mind and his ferocious energy to the problems clients bring to him, and treats all his clients equally.

His higher-class clients resent him for his attitude. But the rest of his clients – particularly those of the lower classes – practically worship him for it.

 

**Exquisite**

I returned home one evening to find Holmes engaged with a client in our sitting-room. But not just any client. I admit that my greeting and usual inquiry as to whether Holmes desired privacy was rather more disjointed than usual, but I could not help but stare at the man sitting on our settee.

In my grandfather’s day, the man would have been called an exquisite. Our modern language had no similar term to do him justice. Dandy was too foppish, lounger implied carelessness, and this man was neither. I had never seen such a well-dressed man in my life.

 

**Moist**

“Ah, Watson, you are most welcome,” Holmes answered my garbled query with his usual aplomb. “Mr. Denham, this is my dear friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson. He is an invaluable ally, and you may trust in his discretion.”

“Delighted to make your acquaintance,” the perfectly-dressed and impeccably groomed man said in deep, cultured tones as he shook my hand. Unlike the rest of him, his handshake was just slightly less than impeccable. The skin of his palm was moist, almost clammy. I resisted the urge to wipe my hand dry on my trousers as I took my usual chair.

 

**Rain**

Some of my happiest memories are inextricably bound to rain.

I remember warm rain plastering my hair to my scalp as my brother carried me on his back, out together on yet another adventure.

Rain dappled my coat as I made my way down the street after my first successful university examination.

Staring across the chemical laboratory at the stranger who would become my dearest friend, I heard rain lash against the windows.

Expecting recriminations to rain down upon my head much as the sudden downpour had soaked my clothes, I instead saw nothing but joy in those familiar eyes.


	5. 7/5/2011

 

**Experience**

Inspector Stanley Hopkins knew he was young for his post. He prided himself on it, just as he took pride in the quick intelligence, dedication to duty, and eye for the main chance that had brought him the title so early in his career.

When he saw Inspector Lestrade not only welcome the tall, arrogant stranger to the scene but actually listen to him, he took a moment to ask about it.

“Oh, that’s Mr. Holmes,” the older Inspector told him with a knowing look. “I expect you’ll get a chance to work with him soon. It’s quite the experience.”

 

**Drive**

Standing there in the cramped environs of the tiny office at Whitehall that Mycroft Holmes called his own, Inspector Lestrade felt a million questions buzz through his mind. Why had he been summoned here? Dr. Watson was safely back in Baker Street – well, not safe, not as ill as he was, but God willing he’d recover soon. What did Mycroft Holmes want with him? Had he found a lead on Mr. King?

“You have questions, Inspector?” Those eyes, so similar to his brother’s, pinned him with amused curiosity.

“Yes. Wherever did you learn to drive a hansom cab like that?”

 

**Given**

“I will gladly tell you and your friend my tale. It is a strange one.” Mr. Denham reseated himself with care for his well-cut coat.

“We have heard many strange tales.”

“And perhaps mine will seem ordinary to you, but it is utterly perplexing to me. I am a minister, and used to hearing strange stories myself. And yet I have never heard of a well-off man – and I am – with a sound living being given consent to marry the sister of one of his dearest friends, only to have that consent revoked that same day, with no explanation.”

 

**Turgid**

“None?” Holmes asked.

“Absolutely none. Rooney and I have been dear friends for years. We shared rooms at university, and went through ordination together. And when he saw my interest in his sister, Alice, and hers in me, he seemed overjoyed. Indeed, he has done everything possible to promote the match. They are all the family each other have in the world.”

“Interesting. And his manner when you asked for her hand?”

“Overcome with happy emotion, or so I thought. He embraced me as a brother. Which made his turgid language when dismissing me hours later all the more shocking.”

 

**Fear**

“Perhaps his sister raised some objection after all?” I ventured.

“I cannot think so. I went directly to Alice after receiving her brother’s blessing. She is all that is lovely and charming in a woman, and possesses a genuine frankness of character. If she had any objection, I am sure she would have said so, gently but firmly. But she said – Well, I cannot repeat exactly what she said, but it was not a rejection. She proclaimed herself very happy at the prospect of becoming my wife. I have nothing to fear in that regard.”

“And yet here you are.”

 


	6. 7/12/2011

**Gray**

“What is it now, dear fellow?”

Watson threw down his proofs. “More of those damnable changes my American publisher wants to make. Honestly, the things they want me to alter!”

Holmes rested one comforting hand on his shoulder. “Surely it’s not so bad?”

Watson looked into those dearly familiar eyes, ones he’d known, observed, and rhapsodized over for well over thirty years. Eyes that now matched the silvered hair. There were only traces left now of the original ebony.

“No,” he stated firmly. “Your eyes are grey, not gray. The Americans can go hang – or better yet, learn to spell.”

 

**Epidemic**

The spring had brought a deluge of interesting and complex cases. By summer’s height, even Holmes’ iron constitution was feeling the strain. Watson, working regularly with Holmes and intermittently covering rounds for several colleagues, looked positively haggard. Mrs. Hudson started fretting over Watson’s poor appetite as much as she did Holmes’.

Watson awoke one morning to Holmes’ hand on his shoulder. “Another case?” he groaned.

“Yes; our train to Brighton leaves in an hour. Pack quickly.”

He did not mention that the matter was utterly trivial, or the article he’d read about a possible typhoid epidemic in the East End.

 

**Harp**

Watson heaved a silent sigh. Listening to their client harp on about his missing wife, his treacherous best friend, the money he had lost, the preposterous and foolish nature of their errand, and above all the dreadful cost of every single expense – however minor – they incurred on their journey, he wondered how the name of one of the most beautiful of instruments had become synonymous with endlessly and tediously dwelling on the same subject. It was either muse on the oddities of colloquial English, or throttle Josiah Amberley before they ever completed the return journey from Little Purlington to London.

 

**Affect**

Pretending that he had been successfully duped into the ambush was a stroke of genius – or so he’d thought. It was only after he’d thrown off his disguise and denounced the criminals that he noted Watson’s unnaturally flat affect and lack of color. He hastily helped him to a chair.

“Once again I owe you a thousand apologies, for I did not consider how my actions might affect you.”

Watson took a steadying drink from the brandy-flask before looking at his friend with an expression equally aggrieved and amused. “By now, my dear Holmes, you really ought to know better.”

 

**Effect**

“I know,” Holmes admitted softly. “I do know, dear fellow. It took time to effect my escape from the ambush undetected. By the time I had, I’d lost sight of everything except the need to apprehend the gang before they could wreak any more havoc.” Holmes’ cheeks tinged with a rare trace of color. “But I should have found some way of alerting _you_ to my continued survival.”

“Could you have done so without risking yourself or the case?”

“Not without risk, no, but – ”

“Then you did the right thing. I can survive your deception – but not your loss.”

 

 


	7. 7/19/2011

 

**Honor**

Standing at his best friend’s right hand, in the place of honor, Holmes did his best to pay proper respect and attention to the solemn event. He was a gifted actor, and no one watching him today should see anything less than the perfect gentleman and supporter. Being the man he was, however, he could not help but observe the small crowd around them, note details of dress, manner, and reaction. There was gratifyingly little other than love, affection, and kindness on display, soothing his surprisingly jangled nerves.

Love, honor, cherish. He hoped Mary Watson realized how fortunate she was.

 

**Flutter**

“Well, Mr. Denham, so far your story is one of personal disappointment, not a matter for a criminal consultant. What has brought you to me?”

“Two things, Mr. Holmes. One, my Alice has disappeared.”

Holmes sat up straighter in his chair. “Vanished?”

“Supposedly she left to visit a friend – “

“Not an entirely implausible event, in light of her disappointment,” I interjected.

“No, but without a word, and without taking a single servant?”

“Odd,” Holmes agreed. “And the other?”

Mr. Dehnam pulled out a note, and I felt a flutter of apprehension as I took in the crudely drawn text.

 

**Macabre**

“’Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her,’” Holmes read. “’Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’ Quite the mishmash of Bible verses, along with a very disturbing portrait. Does the image look like Alice?”

Mr. Denham colored. “In the face, somewhat. I cannot speak to the…other parts.”

“Indeed not,” Holmes murmured to himself. I wished I were in range to give him an unseen nudge. My friend’s bizarre and occasionally macabre sense of humor often manifests itself at the worst possible times.

 

**Lightening**

It had been a long, weary night of watching, all for naught. Perhaps the dreadful weather had put off the criminals, or perhaps something else had changed their plans. Whatever the cause, even the leaden clouds could not disguise the lightening sky. Morning was here, and our vigil was over for the nonce.

“My apologies, Watson,” Holmes murmured as I stiffly got to my feet. “I was certain the thieves would come after the painting tonight.”

“You mean last night,” I mock-grumbled, and was rewarded by a brief grin. “Never mind, dear chap. There’s always tomorrow.”

“You mean tonight.”

“Whenever.”

 

**Lightning**

I could not stifle my yawns as we climbed into the cab. A wet gust of rain followed us inside, dampening both our clothes and the seats before we could secure the door.

“Straight to bed for you, Watson,” Holmes commented as I fought to keep my heavy eyelids open.

“Nonsense. Breakfast first, and then a hot bath – ”

“ – assuming you don’t drown in the tub,” Holmes interjected.

“ – and a brief nap, and I’ll be good as new.”

A loud crack.

Holmes’ lightning-quick arm could not stop my pitching violently forward.

Pain blazed like lightning behind my eyes.

 


	8. 7/26/2011

**Instinct**

Holmes sat unmoving in his chair for nearly four minutes after Mr. Denham’s departure. At last he blinked and reached for his pipe. “It’s not a pretty problem, Watson,” he murmured. “On the face of it, it all seems simple enough. Petty, even. And yet instinct, experience, and deductive reasoning all suggest something more.”

"I confess I cannot see it.” I glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Mrs. Hudson was somewhat behind-hand tonight. If she did not appear soon, she would almost certainly find the sitting-room choked with pipe-smoke. I recognized all the signs of an impending three-pipe problem.

**Germ**

The blasted man wasn’t human. His relationship with his landlady was cordial but not affectionate. He visited no one. He received callers, but they were either clients or professional contacts. He cared for no one.

So the watcher thought, until the day a doctor came to call. He watched his subject prevent the other man from slipping almost before either man was aware of the potential fall. His quarry tucked the doctor’s arm firmly into his own for the remainder of the walk.

From such the smallest seed, the germ of suspicion can grow. The watcher had found Holmes’ weakness.

 

**Normal**

Holmes paced the sitting-room, smoking furiously. At the sound of Watson’s entrance, he spun around and fixed him with an intense stare. “Well?”

“His lungs sound clear, his reflexive responses are adequate, and his pulse has returned to the normal range for a man of his age and activity level. He says he feels fine, but I have instructed him to remain in bed for the rest of the day.”

“And?”

“And I think he was lucky; this was just a warning. But Holmes, you know the truth of the matter as well as I. Mycroft is simply too fat.”

 

**Loose**

“Watson!”

I heard my name being called through the roar of blood in my ears. My head pounded unmercifully, with particularly sharp jabbing pains somewhere just behind my left ear.

“Watson, can you hear me?”

I wrenched my eyes open with an effort. Blurry colors resolved into shapes, but none of them made sense at first. I was staring at upholstery – but why was it sideways to where I was?

“Holmes?” Because the voice calling me was Holmes, I knew that much. “What happened?”

His voice came intermittently to my ears. “We’ve been in a crash…wheel must have come loose…”

 

**Lose**

I fought to understand what Holmes said. “A crash?”

“Yes, dear fellow. You struck your head quite hard at least once, possibly twice. Do you think you can get your feet under you?”

His voice sounded strained, and only then did I realize that he had both his arms around me like iron bands, holding me tightly against his chest and keeping me from pitching over in a heap inside the crazily-tilted, shattered cab. “I think so.”

Sharp pain lanced through my leg as I put weight on it. I did not quite lose consciousness, but the world swam sickeningly.


	9. 8/2/2011

 

**Light**

A light snore greeted me as I made my way into the sitting room. Startled, I nearly dropped my bag. I set it down and quietly divested myself of my dripping overcoat and hat before venturing further.

Holmes sat in his favorite chair by the fire, head lolled back, legs akimbo. One long arm dangled off the armrest and stretched nearly to the floor. The other rested on top of Precious, who kept purring even as she eyed me balefully.

I wanted to laugh. Seeing the dark shadows under my friend’s eyes, I dimmed the gas-light and let him sleep.

 

**Hope**

Hope is a funny thing.

Sometimes hope is born of necessity, when evaluating the potential benefits and drawbacks of a fellow-lodger.

Sometimes hope is painful, when it is disappointed by track-marks again and again.

Sometimes hope is courageous, charging into the darkness and firing at a purported demon for the chance to save its victim.

Sometimes hope is cowardly, hiding truth in silence for years in trust that forgiveness can be had if only asked for, no matter how belatedly.

And sometimes hope is all there is, when war covers the world, sweeping everything and everyone before it, changing everything.

 

**Patina**

The watchmaker was a master of his art. He could tell you many things about the pieces that came through his shop: the quality of the craftsmanship, the precise composition of the metals of the gears, the origins of the decorative chasings. He was no detective, but he knew watches.

When the doctor brought in two pocket-watches for maintenance, the watchmaker immediately knew that the older one, marked “H.W.”, was the more valuable timepiece. He also knew from the patina on the cases that the one marked “Christmas 1894, SH to JW” was the one the doctor used and cherished.

 

**Reign**

I grimly battled back against the darkness that crowded in on my vision. I managed to triumph over agony’s tyrannical reign, but only barely. When I recovered myself, I found myself dangling in Holmes’ arms, almost completely limp. Muttered curses sounded in my ears, ample evidence of my friend’s distress. He rarely allowed his temper to reign over him in such an obvious way.

“I’m all right now,” I tried to reassure him.

“You are very far from all right,” Holmes snapped back. “You are in need of a hospital as soon as we are freed from this blasted wreck!”

 

**Rein**

I could hear shouts, and feel the wreckage of the overturned cab shifting. “Help seems to be at hand.”

“At hand, and yet extraordinarily ineffective thus far,” Holmes growled.

I turned my head carefully, trying to see him. The strain on his face was only partially due to keeping me from pitching down into the smashed side, now on the ground. When I tried once more to help brace myself, support some of my weight, I saw Holmes visibly rein in his temper and bite back another curse.

“Steady, Watson. I have you. I won’t let you fall.”

“I know.”

 

 


	10. 8/9/2011

 

**Memory**

“Now, Lady Deeley, you said that you last saw your necklace in this room. Can you show me exactly where?”

The fussy dowager threaded through the overly-decorated room to a small side-table next to a lamentably droughty window. “Here, Mr. Holmes. I distinctly remember taking it off and placing it here…”

I lost track of the conversation as a pair of scents carried to my nostrils on the cool air: the paper-whites in the pot near the sill, and the lady’s lily-of-the-valley perfume. Memory assailed me like a fist, and it was all I could do not to double over.

 

**Pale**

The lost necklace was not half as interesting a matter as the footman who’d died without a mark on him the same night it had vanished. It was just possible that the two events were related in some way, so I did my best to curb my impatience and listen politely to Lady Deeley.

The room she showed us was a cluttered horror. Better dusted than our sitting-room, perhaps, but nearly as much of a magpie’s-nest, as Watson often called it. I glanced over at him, amused at the thought. My whimsy vanished as I saw him go quite pale.

 

**Photography**

Holmes’ overwhelming interest in all things criminological had occasional side benefits for me. For example, his experiments with the efficacy of photography meant that I knew a very good photographer when arranging a formal wedding portrait.

I often looked at that portrait of Mary and myself, as well as the studio portraits the man had done of Mary by herself. The images helped keep her memory green. But none of those pictures ever evoked her memory as strongly as that particular combination of scents. Scents that brought back death, as real and immediate as the day it stole Mary away.

 

**Simmer**

I am not the world’s foremost investigator for naught. The pale skin, the clenched jaw, the tense hands; these and a dozen other signs spoke plainly of Watson’s pain. I could see the memory of grief and loss simmer just below the surface of his control.

“Mr. Holmes?” Lady Deeley’s eyes darted between me and my Watson, unsure whether to be offended or concerned by our sudden distraction.

“I beg your pardon.” Watson, ever courteous, snapped out of his reverie. “I – the flowers just reminded me of my late wife. She so longed for the spring, just before the end.”

 

**Spun**

How much of Watson’s brief tale of how Mary’s forced paper-whites finally bloomed the day she died was spun out of truth, and how much was expediency? I suspected it was mostly the former. I well knew the power of scents to bring back those we had lost. An unexpected whiff of Ship’s had nearly made me ill with homesickness during those three years.

With that in mind, I made sure to smoke prodigiously on the return trip home and as we sat together in the sitting-room, creating a frail shield of shag smoke against the memory of dead flowers.

 


	11. 8/16/2011

 

**Night**

The sleepless night combined with the shock of the cab accident must have dulled my wits. How else to explain my asking Watson if he could brace himself? How could I have missed the rapidly-darkening stain on the right leg of his trousers?

I nearly lost my grip as Watson’s eyes rolled back in his head and he went terrifyingly limp.

My limbs screamed in protest, but I didn’t dare lay him down on the jagged wreckage. A knight’s armor wouldn’t have been enough protection against some of those splintered pieces. I simply held Watson until his eyes focused again.

 

**Save**

“Save yourself, I have none.”

What a terrible thing, that a chance-met fellow-lodger was the only friend in the world Holmes could, or would, own. He was the dearest friend I had, and had been since shortly after we took rooms together. I could not imagine my life without him. But I had other friends, some made before him, some after, and my Mary.

Holmes? I could think of numerous acquaintances, but none close to him, except myself.

We had shared rooms to save funds, but I realized then that I had helped save him from far worse than poverty.

 

**Rich**

I never expected to be a wealthy man. My interest lay in solving crimes, not committing them, and barring outright thievery, how would I acquire a fortune?

I didn’t realize how much some people would pay to have their mysteries explained, or how a brother who specialized in omniscience might prove useful in advising where to invest my case fees. I soon found myself able to pick and choose my cases.

But I did not change lodgings. Seeing Watson back in his old chair, hearing Mrs. Hudson on the stairs, I felt as rich as I ever wanted to be.

 

**Sinister**

“Holmes,” I said quietly after our client left with his wife on his arm. “You didn’t tell him.”

“Of course not.”

“And you don’t intend to,” I clarified.

“No.”

“And if the child isn’t his? You know it might not be.”

“What of it?” Holmes took a long drag from his cigarette. “There is no way to know for certain. Who can say how many of us unknowingly carry the bar sinister in our family trees? What is sure is that he loves the child as he loves his wife.”

“And that is all that really matters,” I agreed wholeheartedly.

 

**Stung**

The acrid pipe-smoke stung my eyes. As I had foreseen, Holmes pondered Mr. Denham’s story over nearly an ounce of shag. I contemplated going out to my club, but the hour was late and the weather uncongenial. I considered retiring to my room, but the reading-lamp there was almost as hard on my eyes as the fumes from Holmes’ tobacco.

I shrugged and rose to crack open one of the windows. The draught would be annoying, but bearable.

“Consult the time-tables while you’re up, dear chap,” Holmes rumbled. “We need more data. I foresee a morning trip to the country.”

 


	12. 8/23/2011

  
**Past**  
  
A dim corner of my mind knew that I was ill, that it was the fever hazing my mind with these absurd juxtapositions of past and present.  
  
Such logic could not hold sway.  
  
Intermixed with the worried faces of Anstruther, Holmes, and Mrs. Hudson were other faces, equally familiar and real to me: Murray, Rodgers, gruff old Salten, even Fairbairn. The face of the Scottish orderly who had cared for me through the worst of the fever at Peshawar mingled with the features of Anstruther’s hired nurse. Sometimes one predominated, sometimes the other.  
  
I drifted, anchorless, in a delirious sea.  
  
  
  
 **Wrought iron**  
  
Time passed, but I could not measure it, not with the past and present fluctuating erratically before my eyes.  
  
Was I truly here, in Baker Street? Was I in the ruined field tent on the front lines, dreaming as my life bled out onto the sands? Was I lying burning in Peshawar, as disease consumed me? Or was I in some other place, frantically superimposing well-known faces from my past on the hideous present?  
  
I could not say. All I knew for certain was freezing cold, burning heat, clammy sweat, pain like wrought iron spikes in my head and chest.  
  
  
  
 **Shatter**  
  
“Try to drink?”  
  
I focused bleary eyes on the questioner, feeling as if my head might shatter with the effort. The face of the speaker was unknown to me – no, it was Fairbairn – no, Murray – no, just an impartial, placid-faced nurse.  
  
My throat felt on fire. Might liquid soothe it?  
  
Attempting to swallow proved the worst sort of agony. I gagged, fluid dribbling from my lips. Weakly, I turned my head away.  
  
“Drink, Watson!”  
  
A command, not a request, and in a voice I could never disobey, no matter how much pain I might endure in following its orders.  
  
Holmes.  
  
  
  
 **Speechless**  
  
The effort to drink drained the last dregs of vitality from me. Once again I drifted in an unknown sea of past and present, sense and nonsense, speechless, unable to move, scarcely able to breathe.  
  
I became aware of voices, conversational snippets, turning in my memory like wave-tossed stones on a pebbled shore.  
  
“More dressings!”  
  
“Yet another casualty of Maiwand.”  
  
“Ye’re on the path.”  
  
“That’s a strange thing.”  
  
“You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”  
  
“You wish me to come?”  
  
“I never do get your limits, dear fellow.”  
  
“He’s approaching the crisis. If he survives the night, he’ll probably live.”  
  
  
  
 **Thrice**  
  
It was one of the worst cases of influenza he had ever seen. Anstruther admitted that he had not expected me to pull through. Not with the combined weight of disease and loss tilting the scales against him.  
  
He did not say so directly, but I knew he meant all of them: Mary, our stillborn daughter, our son Sherlock…and his namesake. Holmes.  
  
I would have sworn he had been there. Why had I dreamed of him, Murray, Fairbairn, and the others, but not Mary?  
  
Thrice now I had rubbed shoulders with Death, and thrice I had survived.  
  
I wondered why.


	13. 8/30/2011

  
**Transfixed**  
Something had been on Holmes’ mind for well over a fortnight. A case, perhaps? Cases – or at least interesting cases deemed worthy of him – were increasingly rare. It wasn’t often that he left me out of any that arose, even though I had recently taken up the pursuit of medicine again at one of the practices I had helped fund. (The idea, taken from one of Holmes’ earlier cases, had amply repaid me, and not just financially.)  
  
But at dinner, I recognized that he meant to confide in me at last. I watched him fidget, transfixed by his uncharacteristic hesitation.     
  
  
**Trivial**   
The decision to retire was, in the end, a simple one. I solved cases for the joy of it. I craved the intellectual challenge, and that kept me working well past the point where it was financially necessary.  
  
The joy of it, and the companionship.   
  
But time takes its toll. My body was no longer young. Cases grew more violent and less interesting. And two cases in particular demonstrated forcibly that the material and intellectual satisfaction was trivial when compared to the potential cost.   
  
Deciding to retire was easy. Convincing Watson to join me was harder than I ever dreamed.     
  
  
**Unyielding**   
I confess that I failed to anticipate Watson’s shock when I told him of my decision to retire. It was all so plainly logical in my mind. I had rationally considered all the aspects. I had duly pondered the potential drawbacks. My mind would continue to need stimulus, but unlike my younger days, where it made unyielding demands for constant excitement, I felt I could now content myself with the more abstruse puzzles of beekeeping, chemistry, and music. And Watson, of course.   
  
Fool that I am, I never actually _discussed_ any of this with him before I made my announcement.     
  
  
**Weathered**  
In many ways, the immediate results reminded me strongly of an equally foolhardy and unthinking error of mine. The utter failure on my own part to anticipate his reaction. The terrible blank look. The brandy. The anxious waiting.   
  
When Watson recovered himself, I expected – and deserved – to be on the receiving end of his formidable temper. I was less concerned about that than I might have been. I had weathered Watson’s anger before.   
  
I did _not_ expect the terrible expression of grief that briefly twisted his face almost beyond recognition, or the soul-deep hurt that dulled his normally warm eyes.     
  
  
**Wedge**  
I have always had a rather imperious nature. I am not warm, or effusive, or particularly communicative.   
  
_None_ of that excuses the blunder I made.   
  
It was simple for me to explain my reasons for retirement.   
  
It was impossible for me to explain my not discussing any of this with him before making my decision.   
  
Rage fueled by hurt, Watson might not have heard my excuses anyway.   
  
My arrogant assumption that he would merely fall in with my plans without any input or consultation came closer to driving a permanent wedge between us than any other event in our history.  


	14. 9/6/2011

  
**Wild**  
I once compared my temper to a bull-pup.  
  
The wild rage that overcame me that night was tantamount to a man-eating tiger.  
  
Beneath that fury, sick horror that shook me to the core after I stormed out.  
  
How could Holmes treat me so lightly? How could my life and interests matter so little to him?  
  
How could I be surprised? He had always treated my time and professional duties with utter disregard. I had always come when called, left him when he wished, done what he asked.  
  
I was nothing more to him than his tool, his convenience, his dog.  
  
  
   
 **Winter**  
Holmes sent round a briefly-worded note, regretting his short-sightedness in not telling me sooner of his decision to retire. He informed me of the exact date of his upcoming departure, and mentioned that I would be welcome to visit at any time.  
  
It was not an apology. No hint that he wished to discuss things further. Not that he’d discussed them with me in the first place.  
  
Ice closed around my soul as every word confirmed my worst suspicions.  
  
I sent back an equally-brief note wishing him well.  
  
It was winter between us for longer than I like to recall.  
  
  
   
 **Inflection**  
“You don’t mean to say that _you’ve_ not been to see him?”  
  
It wasn’t so much the words as the incredulous inflection that made me frown at Lestrade. He’d retired not long after Holmes left London, but like many Yarders I’d worked with alongside Holmes, he came to me when in need of a doctor. I appreciated that trust.  
  
“No,” I answered shortly, keeping my eyes on the draining cyst. “My practice has kept me busy. And I have not exactly received an invitation,” I added with an attempt at humor.  
  
Lestrade guffawed. “Good Lord, as if _you_ needed one!”  
  
  
   
 **Astrolabe**  
Lestrade’s words haunted me long after he left my office.  
  
Holmes would never directly issue an invitation, not as matters stood between us. His innate reticence and reserve, not to mention pride, would not allow it. He had asked me – well, assumed, but the invitation was there – once. He would not do so again, not if I knew him.  
  
But I had a will, and means of my own.  
  
Sighing, I toyed with the astrolabe on my desk. A gift from Holmes, for no other reason than I had admired it. I wished it could help me navigate these waters.  
  
  
   
 **Disturb**  
In the end, I sent a telegram asking to visit that weekend.  
  
I received a two-word reply: YES STOP  
  
I did not expect a warm reception.  
  
I found a quaint Sussex cottage, furnished with a mixture of country furniture and random items from Baker Street – including our old chairs, set together by the fire. I found Holmes, greyer than before, but with a wider smile than I had ever seen.  
  
I found that he had sent away his housekeeper for the weekend, so as not to disturb the reunion of two stubborn, proud men, clearing away all misunderstandings at last.


	15. 9/13/2011

  
**Taut**  
After what seemed an eternity – although it cannot have been very long – our would-be rescuers finally reached us. Footsteps sounded on the side of the hansom now overhead, and the mangled door wrenched open with a shriek of overstressed wood. A pair of alarmed faces peered down at us.  
  
“Cor! Yer alive, anyhow. Can ye climb out?”  
  
“My friend cannot, but I can lift him up to you.”  
  
Watson tried to object, but attempting to raise himself upwards proved too much for his injured condition. The cords on his neck went taut with strain, and then he went utterly limp.  
  
   
 **Taught**  
Fortunately the two men were very strong. I have taught myself to use my muscles beyond the limits of most men, but I was far from my best. It took nearly all my remaining energy to hoist him upwards into their waiting grasp.  
  
I eeled out after them, ignoring my own hurts. They were trivial; a few cuts and bruises. Unlike Watson, I had mostly fallen against him, not the shattering wood and glass of the hansom. His body had protected me, as he ever did. Now it was up to me to get him assistance as quickly as possible.  
  
   
 **Monopoly**  
My accounts of my friend’s cases occasionally led others to believe that Holmes had a surfeit of vices to go with his unique talents, and that I had few or none of either. This is a failing of my storytelling, and far from the truth. Holmes had no monopoly on notable quirks or bad habits in 221B. We both smoked frequently, but I preferred a much stronger far more objectionable blend. In our early days together I was often indolent and frequently reckless with funds.  
  
And while Holmes was the musician, I had far the superior whistle for summoning cabs.  
  
   
 **Clue**  
“It is certainly picturesque.”  
  
“That’s one word for describing it.”  
  
“And the colors are amazingly vivid, particularly when you take into account the method and the age of the work.”  
  
“Quite. I can’t say as I’ve ever seen anything like them.”  
  
“Nor have I, my dear Watson. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is absolutely unique in my experience.”  
  
“That makes two of us, Holmes. So, have you any idea what it _is_?”  
  
“Not a clue, my friend.”  
  
“Then what on earth are we going to tell him? He’s coming this way!”  
  
“No idea.”  
  
   
 **Risk**  
Although they seemed so dissimilar on the surface, it didn’t take me long to learn that Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson had things in common. The kinds of things that really matter, more than the little details that strike you on first glance. Honor, of course, and loyal in their own ways. Both had dry, unexpected senses of humor, although Mr. Holmes’ could cut you to flinders while the doctor’s just tickled. They shared a high tolerance for risk, and little regard for staying out of harm’s way.  
  
And both had a knack for finding trouble like you wouldn’t believe.


	16. 9/20/2011

  
**Boggle**  
“Look here, Bert. It were a simple ‘nuff job I gave you, eh?”  
  
“Yes, Jamie, but – ”  
  
“No buts about it, me lad. I told ya to go ‘round to Baker Street and sweet-talk the bloke in residence into comin’ along with ya while the troublesome one’s out. Real simple, particularly as you’ve that bonny pistol to do the talkin’. Right?”  
  
“Well yeah, and I done like you said.”  
  
“The blazes you did! How you could boggle such an easy job? It’s unbelievable.”  
  
“But I brought the doctor!”  
  
“And ya also brought a little old lady. What use is she?”  
  
   
 **Trouble**  
“C’mon, she was right there when I came in. I couldn’t just up and leave her to go running to the cops, could I? And she’s been meek and mild as anything. No trouble at all.”  
  
“A’course she’s no trouble _now,_ not with yer gun doin’ the talkin. But what are we to do with her?”  
  
“She could help the doctor with the patching up, maybe?”  
  
“And get to weepin’ over all the blood? Bert, no wonder you’ve no luck with the ladies. You’ve no idea what troubles ‘em.”  
  
“Speaking of trouble, gentlemen – you’re for it, if either are hurt.”  
  
   
 **Priceless**  
“I’m very grateful to you, Lestrade. I would have resisted the scoundrels, but with Mrs. Hudson in harm’s way…”  
  
“You shouldn’t have let that stop you, Doctor.  I was frightened, but I knew you’d keep me safe.”  
  
“Which is why I didn’t try anything. But how did you know we were in trouble, Inspector? Has Holmes returned?”  
  
“Not that I know of. I was on my way to call on you and Mr. Holmes when I saw you come through the door with Mrs. Hudson, and that fellow right behind. It didn’t feel right.”  
  
“Your timing and intuition are priceless.”  
  
   
 **Antecedent**  
“It was just luck, Doctor. Not that I’m one to turn up my nose at luck, but you can’t always count on it in our line of work. I shudder to think what might have happened, if I hadn’t been by just then. Not that you wouldn’t have thought of something, I’m sure.”  
  
“Yes, but I’m relieved that I didn’t have to. We’re both very grateful for your assistance.”  
  
“Where is Mr. Holmes, anyhow? This is the sort of difficulty I’d expect to find him in, not you.”  
  
“Liverpool, researching a particular antecedent of a client.”  
  
“For goodness’ sake, why?”  
  
   
 **Petulant**  
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t inquire.”  
  
“Yes, that sounds just like Mr. Holmes. He’ll be put out about this when he learns of it.”  
  
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that…”  
  
“No need to mince words, Doctor. I haven’t been his landlady all this time for naught. He’ll be positively petulant that he missed all the excitement.”  
  
“Mrs. Hudson, he’s far more likely to be upset that you were put in danger.”  
  
“You’re both right. He’ll be angry –and doubly so when I tell him he should improve the locks at Baker Street. But we don’t want a repeat of this.”


	17. 9/27/2011

  
**Aphasia**  
The specialist had scarcely left the bedroom before he found himself confronted by not one, but two imposing men: both tall, one whipcord-thin, one elephantine. Both fixed him with identical grey gazes, demanding information, but only the thin one spoke.  
  
“Well?”  
  
“A most interesting case. I have seen aphasia before, but in my experience it has always been the result of head injury. You say he was drugged?”  
  
“And beaten, as you saw.” His lips tightened to a near-invisible line. “How long until he can speak normally?”  
  
“Mr. Holmes, forgive the expression, but it is impossible for me to say.”  
  
   
 **Calcified**  
In Mycroft’s opinion, one of the very few drawbacks to the Diogenes Club was the occasional tendency of some of the staff to assume that a regular event or service was somehow something to be expected. Regularity calcified into tradition (or in some cases, actual rules) with alarming rapidity.  
  
That his seven o’clock brandy and biscuits should be enshrined as ritual was gratifying.  
  
That his brother should be immediately ushered into the Stranger’s Room upon arrival and Mycroft urgently summoned, less so.  
  
That every single staff member should know and follow the unwritten rules around his brother? Unsurprising, even predictable.  
  
   
 **Pharyngeal**  
He expected the sights and smells to be strange. He had not realized how much the _sounds_ would change, and how much they would weary him. The thud of hooves on dirt sounded dull compared to the sharp clatter against cobblestones. The pharyngeal and glottal vocalizations of the language grated upon his ear, a constant irregular percussion worse than dripping water or tapping fingernails.  
  
What he would not give for the sounds of a good, crisp, British sentence. Just the slightest sip of his mother tongue, aural tea for his parched soul.  
  
Life-renewing, if uttered in a particular doctor’s voice.  
  
   
 **Crust**  
“What did you do?”  
  
“Watson, you must be more specific.”  
  
“I shall be more than specific. I shall _deduce_. I shall explain my deductions, just as you like to do – ”  
  
“ _That_ should be amusing!”  
  
“ – and you will explain exactly how I am wrong, no doubt. But nevertheless, I shall make the attempt.”  
  
“I am all attention.”  
  
“Mrs. Hudson left the crust on our sandwiches.”  
  
“So she did.”  
  
“I deduce, therefore, that you must have done _something_ that greatly upset her between when I left and before my return.”  
  
“Well done!”  
  
“Thank you. I repeat: what did you do?”  
  
   
 **Modal**  
Everything within him cried out for action. To _move_ , to act, to be free at last. Free of the disguises and the constant need for vigil. Free of the foreign lands and alien lives, however stimulating some had been. But the train would not leave until morning, so he remained in limbo.  
  
On impulse, he slipped into the next-door church. Listening to the modal, mournful chants, he allowed himself to ponder the personal news that had come with the rest. News to him, though months late.  
  
There in the darkness, he lit a candle for the soul of Mary Watson.


	18. 10/4/2011

  


**Drip**  
He was exhausted enough to sleep through any noise. But he was not able to sleep through water splashing directly onto his nose, one icy increment at a time, oozing frigidly into his moustache.  
  
Watson pried open his eyelids. From the light, he judged he’d been asleep for perhaps an hour. He was blessedly alone in the tent, but a small hole in the canvas had allowed sleet to drip onto his face.  
  
Grumbling, he heaved himself to his feet and bent over to move his field cot out of the way of the leak.  
  
The world exploded around him.  
  
   
 **Optimal**  
“Holmes?”  
  
“Yes, Watson?”  
  
“I’m trying to reconcile two contradictory facts, and since you excel at logic, I hoped you might be able to help me.”  
  
“Of course, dear fellow. Anything within my power.”  
  
“Thank you. So, the first fact: I am a doctor, am I not?”  
  
“An excellent one, in fact.”  
  
“And yet the other fact: I am not the one putting stitches into my skin. You are. This is so, true?”  
  
“Very true.”  
  
“And doing a decent job of it for an amateur, I admit. Yet this seems less than optimal.”

  
“So was putting your fist through the windowpane.”

  
   
 **Drop**  
He sat in the chair in their room, staring at the two bags. They remained mostly packed, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. A few toiletries cluttered the washstand: a comb, a leather shaving-tackle kit, a small jar of pomade. And across the foot of one bed, a mouse-colored dressing-gown lay draped, ready for its owner to put it on or away, as befitted his needs.  
  
An owner who would never return.  
  
Even without the jagged rocks, he could not have survived the drop, the raging waters.  
  
Why, then, this paralysis, this soul-deep refusal to believe Holmes was gone?  
  
   
 **Harmonic**  
It was his public profession, but it was also the private force that shaped his nature. Unlike people, mathematics never lied. Numbers were precise, unyielding, unaffected by emotion or frailty.  
  
He frequently amused himself by attempting to define people in mathematical terms. Even the simplest person was far more complex than the most abstruse equation, and yet the principles often applied.  
  
In the case of his most dangerous – and fascinating – enemy, he recognized a harmonic function. All harmonic functions are determined by their singularities, and the inversion of the function yielded another of equal proportion and potential: himself, and Holmes.    
  
   
 **Fossil**  
“I tell you again, Lestrade. I am retired. _Long_ retired.”  
  
Lestrade shook his head. “As am I, Mr. Holmes. And while I can understand why the Yard would still want your advice on the matter, I haven’t the foggiest idea why they’d want to pull in an old fossil like me. I’m just a retired Inspector.”  
  
“Hardly ‘just,’” Watson remonstrated, leaning on his cane. “You’re one of the most decorated Inspectors of your time.”  
  
Lestrade blushed. “Maybe so, but you’ve put it succinctly, as usual – _of my time_. I’m an old man now.”

  
“As are we all,” Holmes agreed softly.


	19. 10/11/2011

  
**Reflex**  
I’ve no idea what made the doctor do it, putting himself between Nellis and Mr. Holmes. He claimed afterwards that it had been nothing more than reflex, the instinct of a trained soldier. That was balderdash. Soldiers are brave, but they’re not trained to throw themselves in the way of a knife-wielding maniac. That was more a doctor’s reaction, acting to save the innocent.  
  
Not that Mr. Holmes is an innocent, or helpless, especially not when enraged. I brought my truncheon down on Nellis’ head right quick. Better a reprimand for me than Holmes in the dock for attempted murder.  
  
   
 **Animal**  
For all his considerable cunning and creativity in attempting to cover up his crimes, Nellis showed his true colors when cornered. The suave, plausible gentleman turned in an instant into a crazed brute, lashing out like a wild animal.  
  
A wild animal armed with a ten-inch blade.  
  
I could have deflected his attack – was prepared to do so – but found myself flung backwards as Watson interspersed himself between us, selflessly (and foolishly) placing his body between myself and the stabbing steel.  
  
Watson cried out and lurched away, the blade lodged in his forearm.  
  
I saw red: Watson’s blood, my fury.  
  
   
 **Resonant**  
Holmes was half-turned towards the constable when Nellis drew the knife and lunged. I stepped between them before the villain could sheath his knife in Holmes’ unprotected chest. The knife skittered off my walking-stick and pierced my arm. I stumbled, and then Holmes was there, supporting me as Nellis collapsed, struck down by the bobby.  
  
“Idiot,” he raged, his voice sounding especially resonant with my head resting against his shoulder.  
  
“It’s just a scratch.”  
  
“The blade’s through your arm!” Holmes tightened his grip.  
  
I gave him a reassuring smile. “Just the fleshy part. It will scar, but no other harm.”  
  
   
 **Mineral**  
Darkness clouded my vision. I beat it back, struggling for coherency. The first thing my eyes focused on was my forearm. I knew it was mine, because I could see the old scar where a villain had put a knife through it in lieu of Holmes’ chest. I became aware of a mineral taste in my mouth, the coppery tang of blood mixed with the bitter taste of mud, and the weight of splintered boards and shredded canvas pinning me down.  
  
I levered myself upwards to see the steaming wreckage of an ambulance resting precisely where my cot had been.  
  
   
 **Frequency**  
DEAR HOLMES STOP DISREGARD MY NAME IN THE PAPERS STOP WAS SLIGHTLY WOUNDED BY RUNAWAY AMBULANCE BUT AM OTHERWISE PERFECTLY WELL STOP OVEREXCITABLE STAFF INCLUDED MY NAME ON THE CASUALTY LIST STOP HAVE ORDERED THEM TO AVOID SUCH FOOLISHNESS IN FUTURE STOP HOPE YOU WERE NOT UNDULY ALARMED STOP YOURS JHW FINAL STOP  
   
WATSON STOP THANK YOU FOR TELEGRAM STOP EVIDENCE SUGGESTS FREQUENCY WITH WHICH YOU RUN INTO DANGER HAS NOT DECREASED STOP CONSIDER CHANGING THAT QUERY AM COUNTING ON YOUR SAFE RETURN STOP PUBLIC DEMANDS MORE STORIES STOP AS DO I STOP NEED MY BIOGRAPHER STOP SH FINAL STOP


	20. 10/18/2011

  
**Vegetable**  
There were many things about having Mr. Holmes as a tenant that drove Mrs. Hudson to distraction. The strange chemical odours. The clients coming and going at all hours. Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson coming and going at all hours. The occasional unsavoury character. The violin music.  
  
Most of these things she could understand, and to some extent excuse, as extensions of Mr. Holmes’ detective career.  
  
Mr. Holmes’ appalling eating habits, however? Inexcusable, infuriating, and kept her up nights, pondering recipes, wondering what (if any) vegetable he might actually eat, and fuming over the latest vivisections of otherwise-untouched roasted fowl.  
  
   
 **Perception**  
If you asked Mr. Holmes, he would tell you that his powers of perception were far greater than almost everyone else’s. He always deferred to his elder brother as the keener observer, but there were few others he acknowledged as having passable powers, much less abilities that approached his own.  
  
And when he told you this, he would be telling you the absolute truth.  
  
He would also be lying – and knew it, although he would never acknowledge the truth of the matter outside of the privacy of his own soul.  
  
He regularly perceived Watson’s emotional perceptiveness far outstripped his own.  
  
   
 **Modular**  
The chalk dust rubbed between his fingers, a pleasantly familiar sensation. He made one more notation on the board before turning to the five young men awaiting him.  
  
“Modular arithmetic has a number of applications in theoretical analysis…”  
  
He evaluated as he spoke. Three he dismissed immediately as uninterested and uninteresting. The fourth showed more promise; he was prepared, ready to learn. The fifth was most intriguing of all; his attention was not only engaged, but he seemed ready to question. Possibly even to challenge.  
  
Potential.  
  
Running London’s greatest criminal network was rewarding, but ah, teaching had its rewards, too.  
  
   
 **Derivation**  
“It’s quite the odd word, if you think about it.”  
  
“It’s a perfectly ordinary word, Holmes.”  
  
“Not at all. In the modern usage it’s a derivation from Latin by way of Old English. But it is also closely related in form and sound to a number of other languages: Old Norse, Old High German, Old French – all expected – but also Russian, Irish, Welsh…”  
  
“Russian? Really, Holmes, you’re joking.”  
  
“Not at all, my dear fellow. The word in Russian is uncannily similar.”  
  
“Well, then, I guess there’s truth in the old saying.”  
  
“What saying?”  
  
“A cat’s a cat for all that.”  
  
   
 **Production**  
The winter and spring of 1884 proved to be an extraordinarily busy time for both of us. Holmes and I became involved in an extremely complex case, the details of which I may never be at liberty to disclose. In addition, I had returned to practice, and I found myself increasingly engaged.  
  
By summer, activity dwindled, and I dreaded the possible doldrums. I knew Holmes was growing desperate when he procured two tickets to the production of Princess Ida, ostensibly for my birthday, but really to give him an excuse to deduce and thoroughly disparage our fellow theatre-goers during intermission.


	21. 10/25/2011

  
**Ire**  
I had scarcely set down my Gladstone bag before the sitting-room door flew open and Holmes appeared at the top of the stairs. “Watson!” he snapped. “You were supposed to return hours ago!”  
  
I met his scowl with considerable ire of my own. “What a brilliant deduction, Holmes,” I growled. “Perhaps next you’ll deduce I’m wet through.”  
  
“I - ”  
  
“You - ”  
  
“Enough!” Mrs. Hudson’s voice silenced us both. “Gentlemen, please retire to your sitting-room. I shall bring tea in five minutes.”  
  
As we both turned to obey, I heard her mutter: “Grown men, ha! More like cranky children.”  
  
   
 **Ante**  
There are many ways of measuring time. There are seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years. There are decades and centuries. There are reigns and epochs.  There are eras. For the more literarily inclined, there are periods and chapters. For the musically-minded, there are intervals, measures, and rests. For everyone, there are heartbeats, pulses, and breaths.  
  
For the two very different men who share rooms together at 221B, all of these measurements of time are familiar and well understood. But for both, there is only one true measure that matters: ante Baker Street, and all the wonderful days that came afterwards.  
  
   
 **Plush**  
For a long while I drifted, not yet awake or aware, but no longer entirely asleep. It was pleasant to float, untethered by thought, unaware of the passage of time. Gradually, ever so slowly, sensation impinged upon my vacant mind, disturbing the blankness.  
  
Warmth. That was what I felt first, a comfortable warmth surrounding me. Softness, too, against the backs of my hands, and a pleasing weight over me. _Blanket_. The word came unbidden.  
  
A different texture rested beneath my cheek, still soft, but plush, short fibers giving gently with every slight movement. _Velvet_. _Pipe-smoke_.  
  
Startled, I opened my eyes.  
   
 **Folded**  
The sight that met my clouded vision was, although blurry, a very familiar one. I knew those andirons, black shapes against the fire in the grate. I knew those two chairs flanking the hearth, the bear-skin rug between them. I knew the contours of the sofa-cushions beneath me as well as I knew the fabric of my own dressing-gown, resting beneath my head.  
  
And I certainly knew the figure in the chair to the left of the fire, long legs folded up beneath him, mouse-grey dressing gown draped around his shoulders, eyes fixed on my face.  
  
“Awake at last, Watson?”  
  
   
 **Languish**  
My friend is full of contradictions.  
  
I know of no man who is capable of working harder than Holmes. When the mood is upon him,  he can work tirelessly for weeks at a stretch, at a pace that would kill a lesser man. Food and sleep seem extraneous to him, irrelevant details. I have seen him run ten miles at a stretch, covering the ground with loping, tireless strides. He is capable of incredible feats of physical and mental exertion.  
  
I have also never known another man to languish on the sofa for days on end, like a sulking child.  
  



	22. 11/1/2011

  
**Message**  
Time is a strange thing. Sometimes it passes in a flash, minutes and hours evaporating in a haze of adrenaline. Other times it drags, sunk in a quagmire of boredom and pain.  
  
It had been nearly twenty hours since I received the brief message. In that time, there had been hours lost to frantic packing and planning; to travel, waiting to board the train, waiting for the train to reach its destination. But it was a curiously suspended time, caught between the extremes of emotion and tedium, partaking of both, part of neither.  Time suspended, waiting to arrive, to act.  
   
  
 **Whimper**  
A soft sound reached my ears. Puzzled, I halted, waiting to see if it would be repeated, or to discover if it had been some freak of the old floorboards, or worse, a figment of my fatigue-dulled imagination. Ahead of me, Holmes also stopped, head cocked, eyes clearly demanding to know what I was about.  
  
Then I heard it again. A faint whimper, scarcely audible above the creaks and groans of the condemned old house, but definitely a living sound.  
  
A sound of pain, of despair, but of life.  
  
Holmes’ eyes widened. “The cellar,” he breathed. “He must be there!”    
  
   
 **Predilection**  
“Watson?”  
  
“Yes, Holmes?”  
  
“I am a reasonably tolerant man - ”  
  
 “You don’t say.”  
  
“Yes indeed; my tolerance of your predilection to sarcasm is just one example of it. But I do have my limits, and I freely admit them. It might have come to your attention that Mrs. Hudson has served brussel sprouts every night for the past fortnight.”  
  
“Yes, she has.”  
  
“I must admit to you that if I see one more of those dreadful things, I might do something rash. Help me think of a tactful way to suggest she change the menu, there’s a good fellow?”  
  
   
 **Vertigo**  
“He will need to be watched carefully.”  
  
I nodded impatiently at the doctor. “So you have said. I understand.”  
  
“I’m not sure that you do, Mr. Holmes. The concussion and shock was significant. While he has improved in the last twenty-four hours, he is still a long way from fully recovered, and could still suffer the most grave consequences.”  
  
“I know, but he wishes to be at home.”  
  
“And doctors who treat themselves have fools for patients, but very well. If he shows any sign of dizziness, unusual fatigue, vertigo, nausea - ”  
  
“Then I will summon you at once.”  
  
   
 **Orison**  
I have seen many differences between cultures in my travels, my exile from London, England, and all that I held dear. And yet it is the similarities that often strike me most profoundly. For instance, there is time. Every culture in the world measures it, shouts out its passage. The chants of Tibetan prayers, the orison of Parisian monks, the wails of the Turkish imams – all call out its passage as part of celebrating the Divine.  
  
My soul only heeds one call, one measurement of time’s passage. I have not yet heard it. Until I do, I remain in limbo.


	23. 11/8/2011

  
  
**Fable**  
It is only in fables and fairy-tales that the destruction of the evil king results in instant happiness. In reality, there is the long slog of arrests and due process, not to mention the slow realization that while the perpetrator has gone, the evil he wrought remains.  
  
The evil, and the loss. Waiting on the train platform, a black-clad Mrs. Watson on one side, an equally somber Mycroft Holmes on the other, seeing my own crepe-band dangling from my sleeve and hat, I knew that some losses could never be made right. Only one familiar figure emerged from the train.  
  
   
 **Abandon**  
I lingered in Meiringen for over a week. I have very few memories of those grief-drenched days; everything seemed covered in dark haze. I know I spoke to the local authorities many times. I found the wits at one point to send telegrams to my wife and to Mycroft. I received messages in return: a wire thanking me for my efforts from his brother, and a tender, brief telegram from my wife, urging me to return home.  
  
I had duties at home I could not abandon indefinitely. But how could I leave without Holmes, without even a body to bury?  
  
   
 **Plan**  
I knew my brother risked considerable danger in his efforts to bring down Moriarty. I did not attempt to dissuade him from it. For one, I knew it would be futile, and I dislike pointless exertion. For another, I recognized that this was something that only Sherlock could do – indeed, might have been born to do. He will never admit it, but he is indeed a benefactor to the race.  
  
I aided him where I could. I did not plan to lose him to any cause, however noble.  
  
There was nothing noble in deceiving the doctor, but it was necessary.  
  
   
 **Truck**  
When the tall, thin fella started comin’ round, askin’ questions, I didn’t have no use for him. Then I tried lightening his pockets, and I found quick enough that he was as keen as any lightfingers, and tricksier by far.  
  
He paid well, and treated fair, and taught me things. Soon enough I found meself part of a whole group of his. Irregulars, he called us. Me, I sorta got used to havin’ the occasional bit of coin and a friendly word.  
  
I should'na had no truck with him. Leastwise then when he died, I wouldn’t have known the difference.  
  
   
 **Magnetic**  
I doubt any other woman would have put up with him. Then again, one might have; Mr. Holmes had a charming, magnetic way about him when he wished, and he always paid dead on time, even in the early days, when he and the doctor scarcely had a spare farthing to rub between them.  
  
As he grew successful, his payments grew, too – at his insistence.  
  
The doctor left, and the payments went up again.  
  
Then he died, and his brother paid to keep his rooms as they’d been. The same money, less trouble, always quiet – and I missed him dreadfully.


	24. 11/15/2011

  
**Vainglorious**  
“What is it, Watson?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“You’re encountering difficulties with your latest story. What is the trouble?”  
  
“However did you know?”  
  
“What, you mean aside from the excessive sighing, the impatient tapping of your right foot, the way you alternately have been chewing on the end of your pen and running the edge along your teeth – you have ink on your moustache, by the way – and the fact that you haven’t written a word in over twenty minutes? It’s elementary, my dear.”  
  
“Thank you Holmes! You just reminded me of the word I was searching for.”  
  
“Genius?”  
  
“Vainglorious.”  
  
   
 **Whiskey**  
I have rarely seen my friend actually overindulge in spirits. Watson enjoys wine, although he is no connoisseur. He keeps a flask of good brandy upon his person, and not just for medicinal purposes. He favors – and savors – a single-malt scotch whiskey from a particular Islay distillery. And when our cases take us to the countryside, he has shown himself a fine judge of local ales, bitters, and stouts.  
  
I have seen him mellow and relaxed after a glass or two. But he never lets himself go past a certain point. The memory of his brother’s weakness haunts him always.  
  
   
 **Papers**  
Within a year of taking up residence in 221B, the storage problem reared its ugly head. Between Holmes’ commonplace-books, newspaper piles, and case mementos, and Watson’s medical journals, case notebooks, and other papers, they quickly filled every drawer in the desk, every open space in the shelves, and frequently covered every flat surface in eddying drifts.  
  
It was largely a sense of self-preservation that inspired Mrs. Hudson to offer her lodgers the use of the lumber-rooms in the attic. After all, it was far better to let them clutter them up than continue to have to clean around the mess.    
  
   
 **Curry**  
My knowledge of London was far superior to Watson’s, particularly in the early days. He had lived in London during his medical course, but he did not know the city as I did. I delighted in confounding him with my encyclopedic knowledge of mews, alleys, and byways. I also enjoyed introducing him to dining establishments I’d discovered that were within our limited means. Simpson’s proved a particular favorite.  
  
Watson was not without his own specialized knowledge, however. One day he shyly brought me to a small, fragrant establishment.  
  
The curry was the most delicious – and spiciest – I had ever tasted.  
  
   
 **Lace**  
A set of silver-backed brushes, combs, and mirrors, carefully cleaned of the golden hairs that had been wont to tangle amongst them.  
  
A number of fine handkerchiefs, some edged with lace, others delicately sewn with fine, near-invisible stitches, two with simple embroidery in the corners; all washed, ironed, and precisely folded.  
  
A pair of feminine slippers, possibly Indian or Persian, fine silk cloth above and leather soles, hardly worn.  
  
A basket of colorful yarns and embroidery flosses, carefully sorted, with a packet of mixed needles.  
  
Assorted mementoes of a life snuffed out too soon, bundled up and given to charity.


	25. 11/22/2011

  
**Mundane**  
The case had shown such promise in the beginning. It appealed to Holmes’ love of the bizarre as well as his chivalrous instincts. But what had appeared at first to be a most ingenious series of persecutions against the young woman quickly proved nothing more than the relatively mundane machinations of a dissolute younger brother scheming for his sister’s portion. I could see Holmes’ enthusiasm disintegrate into frustration and boredom with every new discovery.  
  
Boring and trivial, that is, until the intended denouement of the case, when the supposedly weak-willed and cowardly brother grew desperate, drew a knife, and attacked.  
  
   
 **Atrocious**  
“Watson, I am appalled.” Holmes’ eyes were bright with anger, his thin lips pressed tightly together between sentences as if to contain his rage. “That was the most atrocious display of ill-judgment on your part that I believe I have ever seen. Surely your years as a doctor in the Army should have instilled some common sense into you.”  
  
“There is not much sensible about war,” I pointed out, rather faintly. “And rather less about a man with a knife attacking to kill.”  
  
“All the more reason for you to have stepped out of the way, not deliberately confront him!”  
   
   
 **Droopy**  
“He would have killed you, Holmes,” I stated as reasonably as I could. “And probably his sister, too.” Despite my best efforts, I could feel my eyelids getting droopy. I fought the impulse to let them close with all the energy I could muster.  
  
“He might have tried,” Holmes snapped. “But far better that he make the attempt on me, than…” His mouth clamped shut on the rest of his sentence, and he increased the pressure on my side. I bit back a cry as his bloodstained fingers pressed new agony into my flesh while trying to staunch the bleeding.  
  
   
 **Ambassador**  
I am, most unfortunately, no stranger to violent injury, both as a doctor who tries to heal the damage, and as the one wounded by it. The stab wound was not immediately life-threatening, despite being extremely painful. It was the onset of fever that I feared, that ambassador to infection and occasional harbinger of delirium or death. After Anstruther’s initial ministrations, I did everything I could to avoid such complications.  
  
Nonetheless, despite my best efforts, I woke two days later aching everywhere and shivering with chills. I hardly needed to check my temperature to know I had developed a fever.  
  
   
 **Magpie**  
I frequently lament Holmes’ habit of keeping everything he finds interesting. It results in an immense amount of clutter. However, I had cause to be grateful for it during my extended convalescence from my stab wound and the resulting fever.  
  
Time and again, Holmes dove into his magpie hoard and came up with some interesting object, which he would place in my hands or on the table next to my bed, before regaling me with the most interesting tales of its origin.  
  
I have often been sick or wounded, but rarely have I been so well entertained during my recovery.


	26. 11/29/2011

  
**Battered**  
The dispatch box had been designed for hard usage and longevity, but the battered tin showed that this particular one had been taxed beyond even the usual rigors of army life. The faded letters on the lid were barely legible, the paint faded and flaked off by time, exposure, and hard wear.  
  
Holmes ran trembling fingers over those letters, tracing the name they spelled out, before looking up at the man who answered to it. “Are you certain you don’t mind, dear fellow?”  
  
“We’re old men now, Holmes. I’ve published what I can. It is time to burn the rest.”  
  
   
 **Phase**  
I had plenty of time to contemplate the case as I awaited word of Watson’s condition. The waiting area was uncomfortable, but what of that? My body was bruised, but my brain was perfectly functional.  
  
Had the cab accident truly been an accident? Had we merely lost a wheel, or had the thieves arranged for the wheel to come loose? If the latter, the gang might be entering a far more dangerous phase of operations. Up until now, they had eschewed violence in favor of cunning. If they were changing tactics –  
  
“Mr. Holmes?”  
  
My thoughts came to an abrupt halt.  
  
   
 **Faze**  
“Well, my dear fellow, it appears I shall have to hold tonight’s vigil alone.”  
  
Watson’s eyes were glassy from injury and his pupils dilated from morphine, but these things did not seem to faze him half as much as my words. “Holmes, I realize I cannot come with you.” He glanced at his heavily bandaged leg before recapturing my gaze with his own. “Be that as it may, I hardly think it prudent for you to go alone.” His jaw tightened. “This accident - ”  
  
“ – might not have been an accident. I know. I shall be on my guard.”  
  
   
 **Nail**  
“Well, this is a fine fix.”  
  
“My dear Watson, how was I to know that the horse we hired would turn up lame?”  
  
“We? Oh, no, my dear fellow. Not we. You hired the horse and wagon.”  
  
“And I suppose you would have done a better job of it?”  
  
“I would have least have thought to check the horse’s feet before agreeing to hire it. As the saying goes, ‘For want of a nail, the shoe was lost’ – and that is _exactly_ what has happened here.”  
  
“I see. Henceforth, I shall leave these details to you.”  
  
“Thank you – I think.”  
  
   
 **Kind**  
There are many adjectives I have heard used to describe my friend. Indeed, I have used many of them myself: intelligent, keen, cerebral, Bohemian, focused, single-minded. I have occasionally called him cold, undemonstrative, even inhuman, although these latter descriptions are only apropos to certain events, and not generally true.  
  
Other adjectives are equally accurate, but far more rarely applied: courageous, resolute, kind, generous, and the truest friend anyone could ever ask for. He tried to hide these aspects of his character, from me and from the world. But for all his acting talents, in the end, I found him out.  



	27. 12/6/2011

  
**Chigger**  
“No, the victim was almost certainly American – and so was the killer.”  
  
Lestrade whistled in astonishment, and I felt my eyebrows rise. “How can you know that, Holmes? His clothes?”  
  
“The victim’s clothes only tell me about the victim. But the bouquet left on the chest – those are American flowers.” He touched one dried, delicate blossom. “ _Asclepias tuberosa_ – also known as butterfly weed or chigger flower. It produces a cardenolide glycoside in sufficient quantities that the caterpillars that eat the plant become lethally poisonous.”  
  
Holmes knew his poisons, but my Mary had known her flowers. What had she told me?  
  
   
 **Apple**  
“Yes, here it is.” I traced the passage lightly with one finger, remembering Mary laughingly teaching me about the language of flowers. The book still smelled slightly of her perfume. “Butterfly weed. It means ‘Let me go.’”  
  
“Now that’s interesting.” Holmes looked up from his armchair, where he sat surrounded by various botany tomes. A sample of each of the items from the bouquet rested in a jar by his side. “This part here looks to be aspen leaf. What does it mean?”  
  
“Lamentation.”  
  
“Hm. And apple?”  
  
“Preference, if it’s the blossom. If you found the fruit, that means temptation.”  
  
   
 **Corporeal**  
“So. We have a bouquet of flowers that when put together, suggest ‘Let me go,’ ‘Lamentation,’ ‘Insincerity,’ ‘Baseness,’ ‘Betrayal,’ ‘Cruelty,’ ‘Dark thoughts,’ ‘Preference,’ and ‘Farewell.’ From a more practical perspective, four of these plants are highly poisonous, particularly to the heart. What does that suggest to you, Watson?”  
  
 “Someone hated this man, and wished him dead?”  
  
Holmes snorted. “A wish that took a very corporeal form, both in this carefully collected and placed mix of dried and fresh flowers, and in the number of stab wounds in his chest. The latter suggests a crime of passion, but the former – forethought.”  
  
   
 **Churn**  
A fortnight had passed since Lestrade had asked Holmes’ help in the case of the bouquet murder. In the subsequent time, three more bodies had been discovered, all with carefully chosen floral decorations. The last two posies had contained more fresh flowers than dried, which suggested to Holmes that the murderer was running out of prepared supplies – but London in springtime was full of itinerant flower-sellers, not to mention parks and flower gardens.  
  
That wasn’t what was making my stomach churn, however. It was the single branch adorned with red silk flowers, delivered anonymously to our door.  
  
Rosebay: _danger, beware_.  
  
   
 **Chatter**  
I should have realized that Holmes would attempt to leave me behind. He had been highly disturbed by the arrival of the floral message, which indicated that either the killer, or someone familiar with the killer, knew of us and our address.  
  
“I really have some scruples, allowing you to accompany me tonight,” he grumbled, his voice nearly masked by the low chatter of the other men in the room.  
  
I smiled, understanding his reminder of one of our earliest, and most dangerous, cases. “I might be of assistance,” I paraphrased. “And I would not let you come here alone.”


	28. 12/13/2011

  
**Eleemosynary**  
“Really, Watson. What harm do you imagine could come to me at a subscription dinner?” Holmes’ chiding words were belied by a faint smile creasing the corners of his eyes.  
  
“You tell me,” I retorted. “I cannot imagine what connection there could be between a reputable eleemosynary institution for the betterment of indigent females and a flower-strewing killer. And yet here we are.”  
  
All traces of mirth vanished. “Yes, here we are indeed, for no fewer than three of the victims had connections to this very organization. Not all so-called charity is benign – and neither is it always charitably received.”  
  
   
 **Perspicacious**  
Holmes’ pronouncement sent a shiver up my spine, and heightened my determination to remain alert. Yet despite my friend’s perspicacious observation, nothing occurred that I would call at all out of the ordinary. We were but two amongst perhaps twenty other visitors to the organization. There were nearly twice that many official members in attendance. Drinks were served, polite discourse was held, and we were all encouraged to consider further donations, even before we were led in to what proved to be a mediocre dinner.  
  
In short, it was an utterly dull affair, at least until after the dessert course.  
  
   
 **Vermiculate**  
As we rose from our dinner chairs to move back towards the library, where we were to receive an after-dinner libation (along with, no doubt, further solicitations for funds), I noticed Holmes tense slightly. It would have been imperceptible even to me, had I not known him for so many years and been directly beside him. His attention seemed momentarily fixed on one of the servants waiting on the banqueters.  
  
I was unsurprised when Holmes took advantage of the confusion to dart away, hastening down the grand staircase with its vermiculate bannister. No one noticed, and I dared not follow.  
  
   
 **Farthingale**  
It was up to me to continue the charade alone. Fortunately my part was not much of a reach: that of a physician and widower, with no family to leave what funds I had managed to accrue over my career. Under other circumstances, I might have been genuinely interested in supporting the “good works” of the stated goals of the society.  
  
Instead, I pretended interest in the history of the organization and stared at the portrait of a regal woman dressed in a ruff and farthingale gown. I tried to dismiss as imagination the cold expression in her painted eyes.  
  
   
 **Procrastinate**  
The crowd had thinned considerably. Most of the others, guests and members, had already taken their leave.    
  
I was running out of plausible ways to procrastinate.  
  
Every instinct that I had revolted against leaving without Holmes, but I knew I must. “Well, gentlemen, I thank you for your hospitality. I had not realized the hour, and I have early rounds on the morrow.”  
  
I don’t think I imagined their relief as they showed me to the door.  
  
I know I did not imagine _mine_ when a tall, lean figure joined me the moment I left the building. “What kept you?”


	29. 12/20/2011

  
**Nudge**  
If there is anything on Earth more aggravating than Holmes asking a rhetorical question with an amused, ironical smile curving his lips, I do not know what it is. I resisted the urge to give Holmes an unkind nudge with my walking stick. “You never told me you were leaving,” I retorted. “I thought you were still in the building.”  
  
“Even if I was, dear Watson, your remaining on the premises could not further my investigations.”  
  
Does any man appreciate hearing that his efforts are useless? I know I do not, despite many years of being repeatedly told exactly that.  
  
   
 **Behoove**  
“Doubtless not.” I swallowed the rest of the angry retort that trembled on my tongue. “What did you discover?” I asked instead.  
  
I had not given voice to my feelings, but Holmes read them all the same. A brief expression of chagrin creased his brow, and he reached out to lightly grip my good shoulder. “My apologies, Watson. Such churlishness does not behoove me, and is certainly no fit reward for your kind concern.”  
  
When Holmes’ syntax grows that convoluted, it is a sure sign that he is genuinely sorry. I forgave him immediately, with a smile and a nod.  
  
   
 **Pants**  
Holmes was not entirely forthcoming about everything he had learned. Even so, what he did reveal to me was enough to make my blood run cold.  
  
“Those poor girls,” I murmured. “Indentured servitude is too mild a term, Holmes. From what you describe, it’s nothing more than slavery.”  
  
“Indeed.” Holmes’ voice was hard. “And like slavery, there seems to be little chance for escape. Such dire conditions often lead to drastic actions.”  
  
“The killings.”  
  
“Yes. And unless I am greatly mistaken, Mr. Wober – who, to use an Americanism, wears the pants in the assignment committee – is likely our next victim.”  
  
   
 **Dearth**  
Holmes’ whimsy in using an American expression was one of his rare instances of humor, but even so, his words were not chosen by accident. There was an abundance of Americans in this case, not least in the roster of the society’s members. Dried flowers of types only found in America appeared in all of the posies found on the victims. Holmes consulted two in the States, a noted detective in the Chicago police, and a world-famous botanist.  
  
An overabundance of potential victims – and a dearth of critical clues.  Mr. Wober was not the fifth victim.  
  
He was the sixth.  
  
   
 **Noisome**  
“I’ve done my best, Mr. Holmes, but word is bound to get out.” Inspector Lestrade sat on one end of our sofa, looking as haggard and harried as I’d ever seen him. I’d already rung Mrs. Hudson for some tea, but I splashed a goodly measure of brandy into a glass and handed it to him. He nodded his thanks.  
  
“Damn the press!” Holmes snarled. “Nothing but a noisome pack of halfwits.”  
  
“They’re not so dim as to miss a half-dozen flower-bedecked corpses inside of a fortnight,” Lestrade sighed. “The Superintendent wants the killer found.”  
  
As if we did not!


	30. 12/27/2011

  
  


** Batten **

As a man of the world, I should have known better. It is a sad truth that while most charities exist to succor the objects of their efforts, there are a few whose real purpose is to batten themselves. 

Still, the depths to which this society sank shook even my battle-hardened soul. They went far beyond enriching their pockets at the expense of the indigent women they were supposed to help, and into depths of cruelty that I shudder to recall.

“Work is a Woman’s Glory and the Ladder to Gentility,” read their motto.

“Women Are Disposable” reflected their truth.

** Teaser **

The young woman who finally gave Holmes the break he needed in the case was terrible to look at. Far too thin, bent and twisted by rickets, and wrapped in little more than stinking rags, she looked scant breaths from death. She had been a teaser at one of the river-side woolen mills, sold there by the supposed charity. She had lost most of the fingers on her left hand to that work, and been tossed out onto the street as useless, expected to die.

She survived. She saw. She remembered. And when the opportunity came, she spoke her secrets.

** Tormentor **

What causes one person to snap, while another person in similar or worse circumstances remains sane? It is a mystery not even Holmes could solve. 

Our informant had suffered agonies, yet remained intact. Our murderess had, at least on the surface, fared much better. She had been assigned to a teaching post. She had become the chosen wife of one of the founding members of the institution. Yet madness was the only relief she could find from her tormentor, and from the institution that had empowered him.

Then again, perhaps her marriage was a worse hell than the vilest slum.

** Vomitorium **

Knowing the name of the culprit and catching her proved two very different things. We had no proof, just the words of an informant no one but Holmes and myself would believe. Fortunately, the street-beggar was not our only helper. One of the servants (whom Holmes had recognized at the dinner) provided us entry into the institution, which concealed more than its Victorian façade suggested.

We descended the stairs and into the subterranean tunnels. The passageway could be more aptly termed a vomitorium, in both its ancient construction, its destination, and latterly, its smell. It reeked of vomit and blood.

** Periaktoi **

“This is how she was able to come and go undetected?”

“And where she killed at least one of her victims.” Holmes placed a hand on my arm as we reached the other side of the crude amphitheater. “Careful, Watson. The passageway divides here.”

It proved a warren. Holmes sent me down one way, while he investigated another passage.

Unfortunately, there was more at work than we knew. Like an ancient periaktoi, we were so focused on one scene, we failed to notice the other sides to the triangle.

At least not until something heavy crashed down on my head.


	31. 1/3/2012

  


** Cumbersome **

Bright lights flashed across my vision, accompanied by blinding pain. Agony momentarily blotted out all other sensation, dragging me down towards unconsciousness. I fought against it with every ounce of will I had, and managed to retain some grip on my faculties. I managed to lift my aching head, my thoughts cumbersome with shock. 

I had fallen to my hands and knees, I dimly realized. My lantern had fallen to one side, but its light still shone, reflected off of the walls, the floor, the shiny patent leather of a man's dress shoe.

Wait. A _man's_ dress shoe - ?

** Dark **

The shoe moved, and I instinctively rolled away from it. From _him_ , my dazed brain corrected. My vision was too blurred to provide detail, but it was definitely a man's form that loomed above me. A man in dark clothes.

A man who had just tried to hit me over the head. Again. I heard the dull clunk of something striking the earth just where my head had been. 

"You should have stayed away, Doctor Watson," I heard a masculine voice growl.

"Watson!" A far different voice, well-known, anxiously calling.

Two sets of footsteps: one running towards, the other away.

** Tonight **

"Easy, dear fellow." Holmes' hand pressed me back into my chair. "Don't try to rise just yet. You've had a rough time of it tonight."

From what little I remembered of our journey back to Baker Street, Holmes hadn't had an easy time of it, either. "I thought you said our killer was a woman. But my attacker was definitely a man."

"A man, yes, but wielding a penang-lawyer, not a knife. You're sure he said _your_ name, not the alias you used at the charity?"

"Yes."

"And we were warned directly with rosebay." Holmes' forehead knotted. "I'm missing something."

** Poor **

Although I promised Watson I would take extra precautions, I did not presume to try and convince him that I would not return to watch over the painting. For one thing, any such attempt would have been utterly absurd. Watson was injured and dazed, but hardly so far gone as to believe _that_. 

And it might have made him suspicious. I would have been a poor investigator indeed if I had not recognized the potential for ambush, particularly if the hansom 'accident' was deliberate. But one man's ambush is another man's – _my_ – opportunity to catch the ambusher in the act.

** Pour **

To be truthful, I was far from my best that night. I still ached all over from the cab, and lack of rest, scant food, and ongoing anxiety over Watson's condition all combined to reduce both my mental and physical capacity. I did my best to plan around these inconveniences as I formulated my stratagems.

It was another wretched evening, the kind where the rain could be said not to fall, but rather pour down from the heavens in sheets. Outside the premises, visibility would be extremely limited. And inside, servants and guards alike would be prone to huddling hearthside.


	32. 1/10/2012

  
  
**Two**  
I knew that there had to be at least one person providing information to the thieves from the inside. How else to explain their failure to appear the night previous, or their cunning knowledge of their targets and the precise paintings to steal? These were targeted, well-planned attacks. And if the carriage accident had been anything but, they were also alarmingly organized and ruthless.  
  
I had thought that I had evaded detection when entering the house. I also only expected two thieves, perhaps three.  
  
I did not expect an entire gang, aware of my presence and out for my blood.  
  
  
 **Too**  
I had concealed myself with some care, but I realized that I would be found. Two men busied themselves removing the painting from its frame. Two more positioned themselves by the door. The other six spread out along the long gallery, searching. Several carried truncheons.  
  
If I was a betting man, like Watson, I'd have wagered my entire case fee there were men stationed at the other end of the long gallery, guarding that door, too.  
  
No easy exit, then. My only hope was one of the large windows – and the rain-slicked decorative masonry, four stories above the sodden ground.  
  
  
 **To**  
Even with morphine, I could not sleep that night. Some of it was pain, edging around the drug. Some of it was the discomfort of being in hospital, the constant noises, the astringent smells, the disturbing memories it brought to my mind.  
  
But mostly it was worry for Holmes that kept me wakeful.  
  
The night crawled past, but Holmes did not appear.  
  
The morning arrived, but Holmes did not.  
  
When I did finally receive a visitor, Lestrade's ashen, grief-drawn countenance struck an instant chill to my heart.  
  
"Doctor Watson. I would give anything not to have to tell you this…"  
  
  
 **Turn**  
"Could our informant have been mistaken?" I asked, trying to think despite my aching skull.  
Holmes frowned as he continued to pack tobacco into his pipe. "It's always a possibility, of course." Then he shook his head once, decisively. "No, Watson! Too many other details all point in the same direction. We know the name of our killer, of that much I'm certain."  
  
"Then who was my attacker, and why did he attack me? For that matter, why warn us with the rosebay?"  
  
"The attack was a most unexpected turn," Holmes admitted. "And the rosebay… Why? It makes no sense!"  
  
  
 **Stone**  
"None of this makes sense," I grumbled. "While killers are by definition illogical, I wish this one would make up his – or her – mind. Go on a killing spree, stop in the middle to warn us off the case, then try to brain me…"  
  
Holmes froze in the middle of drawing on his pipe. His grey eyes went distant while a faraway expression softened his features.  
  
"Watson, that's it!" He smacked his forehead. "So stupid - my wits must have turned to stone!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"We aren't contending with one person, but with three! The killer, her husband – and our rosebay-bringer!"


	33. 1/17/2012

  
  
**Like**

"What now, Holmes?"  
  
I could not like what Holmes told me of his next steps. It put too many at risk – himself foremost, but others too. But I knew that he had not told me all of his plans, and that trying to gainsay him was futile in any case. All I could do was offer my assistance, recover as quickly as I could, and be ready to follow him at a moment's notice.  
  
That, and keep a telegram form half filled out in my pocket, ready to dispatch to Inspector Lestrade. Even Holmes admitted we might need official assistance.

**Love**

How to explain it, in the end?  
  
Love takes so many forms. Most of them wondrous and beautiful, but some… Some sicken the soul to see.  
  
The mad, murderous love of a wife, faithfully acting out the 'morality' that had been beaten into her broken mind.  
  
The twisted love of her abuser husband, who did his best to cover up her crimes in order to protect her, including attacking me – and used the same butcher's knife his wife had wielded to hold off Holmes and the officers who came to take her away.  
  
In the end, he slit her throat.

**Choice**

I shall not soon forget that sight, the young, mad wife calmly tilting her head back, accepting her fate.  
  
The blood. So much of it, spraying over everyone. She died within minutes.  
  
He tried to kill himself, too, but he knew considerably less about slitting wrists. He lived long enough to hang.  
  
And then there was Miss Verity, who by chance had once been a patient of mine. Torn between loyalty to her family and horror at her sister-in-law's actions, she risked the rosebay message, hoping Holmes would investigate and somehow stop the killings.  
  
The result satisfied – saved – no one.

 

**There**

“You’re certain?”  
  
Lestrade shifted nervously. “Certain? No. I can never be certain, when there is no body. Particularly when - ” He broke off, deeply uncomfortable, and I knew we were both thinking of that terrible spring in 1891, and the miraculous one three years later. “But it is his coat, and there’s all the blood, both where the painting’s gone missing and on the cloth itself. And one of Mr. Holmes’ own Irregulars brought word of hearing two men boast of dumping his body into the Thames.”  
  
I closed my eyes against the pain. “Thank you, Inspector, for coming.”

**They're**

Four days.

No sign of Holmes – no word, no messages, no sightings… no body.  
  
I had returned to Baker Street. The painful inconvenience of my injured leg was offset by the familiar surroundings. My mental torment, however…  I was haunted by his absence, and by the wordless anguish in Mrs. Hudson’s eyes that echoed what I saw in the mirror.   
  
Finally, Inspector Lestrade came with news. A nameless informant had tipped off the Yard as to where to find the gang and the missing artwork.  
   
 “They’re going to pay,” he assured me.  
  
 “They will. And I am coming with you.”

 

 

(And two bonus rewrite drabbles, to end the Homonym series):  
  
 **Affect**  
Pretending that I had been killed attempting to escape the ambush was a stroke of genius – or so I'd thought. It was only after I'd thrown off my disguise and denounced the criminals that I noted Watson’s unnaturally flat affect and lack of color. I hastily helped him to a chair.  
  
“Once again I owe you a thousand apologies, for I did not consider how my actions might affect you.”  
  
Watson took a steadying drink from the brandy-flask before looking at me with an expression equally aggrieved and amused. “By now, my dear Holmes, you really ought to know better.”  
  
  
 **Effect**  
“I know,” Holmes admitted softly. “I do know, dear fellow. It took time to effect my escape and mislead the culprits. By the time I had, I’d lost sight of everything except the need to apprehend the gang before they could wreak any more havoc.” Holmes’ cheeks tinged with a rare trace of color. “But I should have found some way of alerting _you_ to my continued survival.”  
  
“Could you have done so without risking yourself or the case?”  
  
“Not without risk, no, but – ”  
  
“Then you did the right thing. I can survive your deception – but not your loss.”


End file.
